US/NATO Reconstruction of Afghanistan

(Pics show people living in and around Kabul, and drug addicts in the city – Kabul shows the government’s impotency in all walks of life)

US/NATO Reconstruction of Afghanistan

The latest, 33rd quarterly report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) says ‘as of September 30, 2016, the United States had appropriated $115.22 billion for relief and reconstruction in Afghanistan since FY 2002’.

Where has this money gone?

Most of this money is re-appropriated back to the aid-givers on accounts of their fees and the inability of the Afghan govt.to conduct the projects assigned.

The Report says: ‘Since 2002, US has provided more than $10.22 billion in on-budget assistance. This includes about $5.62 billion to Afghan government ministries and institutions & nearly $4.60 billion to three multinational trust funds— World Bank’s Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF), United Nations Development Program’s Law and Order Trust Fund (LOTFA) & Asian Development Bank’s Afghanistan Infrastructure Trust Fund (AITF)’.

Which means that less than 5% of the total money reached the Afghan govt!

It says ‘The security environment, insufficient infrastructure, declining global commodities prices, and inadequate capacity at the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum (MOMP) have all hampered the development of this sector’.

It says ‘USAID said the MOMP currently cannot administer the approximately 339 existing extractives contracts. This caused MIDAS to be rescoped to provide technical assistance and transaction-advisory services to the MOMP in its effort to either cancel or renegotiate some or all of these contracts.’

It says ‘The most immediate challenge to the U.S. reconstruction effort, and to the viability of the Afghan nation-state, remains the armed insurgency pursued by the Taliban and other factions’.

It also says ‘As of Sept, 2016, US has provided $8.5 billion for counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan since 2002. Nonetheless, Afghanistan remains the world’s leading producer of opium, providing 80% of the world’s output’.

All this means that the relief & reconstruction of Afghanistan has nothing to do with the Afghan people who keep living their lives in misery, rather it has everything to do with the freedom & ease for foreign companies associated with NATO, of extracting mineral resources from the Afghan soil.

And until that happens, all that money can remain in an unaccounted-for limbo, and eventually go into some favorite pockets – after all it’s a small part of the 6.5 trillion waste that the Pentagon is unable to account for in its latest audit.